is there an organization gene? or can someone point to some critical failure in personal development for the reason i am so terrible at it? or is it, as so many rolling-eyed neatniks have asserted to me in my life, that i’m just debilitatingly lazy?
my vote is for the gene. i prefer to assume i have a lifetime curse thanks to some tiny bit of DNA code. cue the exasperated snort from so many neat girlfriends and older-brother-figures i’ve been close to in my life.
why? because i try! i HAVE graduated from the long-haired dreamy teenager that would lounge among the tide of clutter in his room and swear that he preferred things that way. i DO want things to be organized, i DO want to be able to find what i’m looking for, i DO want to put my hands on my hips and survey my domain with a satisfied sigh.
right now i’m typing amongst a battlefield of personal rubble. our home office is being subjected once again to my bimonthly crusade to ‘organize’ it. all day long i’ve been transferring stacks of papers, sorting through files, dusting off shelves, and collecting pens. i’ve consolidated cords and rethought furniture placement, broken down boxes and opened forgotten mail.
in another few hours i’ll be ‘finished,’ my storage out of sight and our office supplies in neat rows. i’ll feel proud of myself and monica will be impressed.
but in two months, i’ll be here again, and i’ll wonder where my new system went wrong. i’ll have forgotten my frustration at seeing ‘neat people’ blithely organize a system or clean a room in a sixteenth of the time it takes me to do so. i’ll have forgotten that i have a bad gene, and i’ll really believe that this time i can set things up so they’ll be neat n’ tidy and stay that way.
it just doesn’t seem fair.
